This paper reports research work related to a wider study, aimed at developing a mobile app for Science Education in primary-school. Several studies reveal that Science Education can be improved by using technology, namely educational software. However, to promote a structured use of technology, innovative learning approaches must be designed for educational software. This paper aims to answer how the interaction between students and a mobile app for Science Education can promote students’ scientific competences development and self-regulated learning. To achieve this, a learning approach was designed, combining the Universal Design for Learning principles, Inquiry-Based Science Education and the BSCS 5E – teaching model for Science Education designed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, which results in the acronym of the model. The 5E is related to each phase of the model: Engagement; Exploration; Explanation; Elaboration; Evaluation. The proposed was based on a grounded, participatory, and user-centred approach, crossing literature contributions with data collected among primary-school teachers through the application of a questionnaire (n = 118). Data collected allowed deductions about the expected adequacy of the learning approach, according to Nieveen’s criteria for high quality educational interventions. This adequacy was revealed through the teachers’ conceptions about the potential impact of the conceptualized mobile app (i) to provide a comprehensive and practical Science Education learning; and (ii) to enhance students’ scientific competences development and self-regulated learning. The paper aims to contribute to the design of an innovative learning approach in Science Education and to share it with other researchers since it can be expanded to other educational software.

The COVID-19 pandemic of the last two years has affected the lives of many individuals, especially the most vulnerable and at-risk population groups, e.g., older adults. While social distancing and isolation are shown to be effective at decreasing the transmission of the virus, these actions have also increased loneliness and social isolation. To combat social distancing from family and friends, older adults have turned to technology for help. In the health sector, these individuals also had a variety of options that strengthened eHealth care services. This study analyzed the technologies used during the COVID-19 pandemic by a group of older people, as well as explored their expectations of use after the pandemic period. Qualitative and ethnographic interviews were conducted with 10 Portuguese older adults, and data were collected over a period of seven months between 2020 and 2021. The research demonstrated that the use of current and new technologies in the post-pandemic future is likely to be related to overcoming: (i) insecurity regarding privacy issues; (ii) difficulties in using technologies due to the level of use of digital technology; and (iii) the human distancing and impersonal consequences of using these technologies.

The present paper is part of a wider study, focussed on the development of a digital educational resource for Science Education in primary school, integrating an Educational Data Mining framework. The proposed conceptual framework aims to infer the impact of the adopted learning approach for the development of scientific competences and students' self-regulated learning. Thus, students' exploration of learning sequences and students' behaviour towards available help, formative feedback and recommendations will be analysed. The framework derives from the proposed learning approach, as well as from the literature review. Before introducing it, the authors present an overview of the digital educational resource learning approach and the adopted Educational Data Mining methods. Finally, we present the proposed conceptual Educational Data Mining framework for Science Education, focussing its relevance on the development of students' scientific competences and self-regulated learning.

The research work reported in this article is part of a wider study aimed at developing a mobile application (app) for Science Education in primary school. For that, we designed a participatory framework proposal nested within the larger framework of Educational Design Research. This framework emerged from the authors’ need to organise the different phases of the mobile apps development and to arrange the expected products that arise from them. Our framework suggests a grounded, participatory and user-centred approach, relating literature contributions with data collected among future end-users. In this study, we exemplify the implementation of the proposed framework by presenting the outcomes of a specific moment of the preliminary research: students’ stories and drawing analysis, to define the mobile app concept. For that, we (1) present and describe the participatory framework proposal, (2) identify and characterise the research method adopted to define the mobile app concept, (3) reveal and analyse data collected from the implementation of a creative writing and drawing activity performed by fourth grade primary-school students, and (4) describe the implications of data analysis in the mobile app concept definition. Our intention is to share with other educational researchers an approach that can be used to develop educational mobile apps grounded on future end-users’ perceptions and ideas. We also aim to contribute to deepen the Educational Design Research apps by proposing and exemplifying the implementation of a framework that brings together researchers, students, teachers and experts.